Thoughts 29

29. Karma: The present can fine-tune the future, even though both are at the mercy of the past.

Thoughts 28

28: (Slow and steady wins the race) but the fast and consistent goes beyond it!

Monkey mind

The mind keeps on jumping like a monkey is well known and an experience of everyone. Its also a common practice to try and control the mind. There are various meditation techniques taught to that effect. Soon these techniques, when not being used, fall apart! That is, the mind is meditative, at most, only while its involved in meditation.

While comparing the mind with the monkey’s unsteady behavior, we soon forget some other qualities of the monkey. A few months back, at Varadahalli Sridharashrama, I was sitting on top of the hill reading blissfully, when ruffles of leaves caught my attention. A monkey was trying to eat some seed-like fruits from a tree. The discipline with which it searched the fruits and ate them surprised me. There was a process it followed. It used to walk up a branch, picking only the fruits hidden among leaves and then trace its way back doing the same thing, before moving out to another branch and repeating the process. I kept on watching for a long time. It was as if the monkeys knew what is known as the depth-first algorithm!

Humans take undue credit for so-called inventions when all we do is discover! The nature has everything that there is to have, we just discover them and the ego takes over claiming them to be inventions.

Moving back to our topic of mind having monkey’s restless characteristics, it also has the power of monkey’s discipline that I just gave an example of. We fail to see that and are comfortable with accepting that the mind’s job is to jump around and then we let it be. Why not see that the mind’s job is to be disciplined in its search for the fruit that its born to eat? The fruit lies in the depth-first algorithm; there’s no point in moving across branches endlessly without going deep within the nearest branch known as yourself!

Identity crisis!

A gazillion...

... moods: agonizingly funny, downright stupid, insanely brilliant, wholly lonesome, barrelful drunk...

... personalities: involved, enticed, careless, lost...

... plans: all tangential and contradicting.

I can't relate to any of these right now. All these elliptic thoughts seem to be making up a dotted-line to psychosis!

Vibhuti

When I wear the vibhuti, also known as bhasma, it tells me a story. It tells me that whatever there is, has its ending as ash! The body, our possessions, all of that made over years and years is but, temporary. People say that possessions will be carried over to generations' benefit, but I see that as being temporary too. Why collect things when someday its got to be thrown away or turned to ashes? That sounds like death of matter.

On the other hand, someday even those doings, thoughts and the other subtle stuff such as mind, intelligence, memory and whatever there is, in essence, will be burned to ashes. Thats what vibhuti represents to me. It says out loud to defocus from the impermanent foreground that will automatically take one to the permanent background of the eternal self. Akin to photography, where one defocuses with the lens all the objects to clearly see the subject. Technically, its shifting to the background process, disowning all those overlapping foreground processes with their innumerous threads and dangling pointers turn into zombies in totality and let them die their own death!

chidAnanda rUpa shivohaM shivohaM

Thoughts 27

27. The presence of some things is felt even in their absence.

Nothing else matters!

There are times when words just don't mean anything. Either they are said too much in excess when not in need of, or not meant so. At other times, its just a feeling that tells ya that you know what is what, without being told.

I was thinking that a friend even when out of touch or not responding to your mails will still be a friend. The bonding exists if you feel it exists. It need not necessarily be expressed... its just there. I'm reminded of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters:

So close no matter how far, couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are, and nothing else matters
Never opened myself this way, life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say, and nothing else matters
Trust I seek and I find in you, every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view, and nothing else matters
Never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know
But I know

So close no matter how far, it couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are, and nothing else matters
Never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know
But I know

I never opened myself this way, life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say, and nothing else matters
Trust I seek and I find in you, every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view, and nothing else matters

Never cared for what they say, never cared for games they play
Never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know
And I know

So close no matter how far, couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are, no, nothing else matters

Thoughts 26

26. Dharma is quite a forgotten word, much misunderstood and a lot modified for various conveniences!

(originally written on March 24, 2006 and intended as a longer blog entry that never worked out)

Thoughts 25

25. Living is enforced on a person, just as dying is!